Transit Planning $h!tposting (Ideas so bad, they're good)

TheRatmeister said:
This wasn't by happenstance though. Watertown, Brookline, Arlington, Brighton, Southie, much of Dorchester, etc were all Streetcar Suburbs, they were designed around streetcars in particular, not with rapid transit conversion in mind. That was the point, lower densities offered an escape from the less than pleasant urban life of the time. Had we as a society thought rationally about the future of streetcars in the 1940s and 50s, routes like the 16, 22, 28, 71, 73, and 77 would likely still be operated as streetcars.
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It's not about the densities being low. Even in the early 1900s, plans called for an El extension to what is roughly today the Malden bus terminal. This extension would've followed the routing of today's 109 and 106 buses from Sullivan Square via Broadway, Sweetser, and Main. Plus the southside El being extended from Nubian to Forest Hills, despite the city quickly fading into the abyss by the time it gets to Green Street.

West of Boston, you've got major bus terminals at Waltham Center, Watertown Square, and Newton Corner. Brighton Center (and debatably Union Square Allston) is also strong enough to warrent being a dedicated bus terminal. All of these bus terminals could be stringed together onto a single rapid transit line like with northside Orange. Waltham is the metro-west equivalent of Lynn and Quincy on the north and south-shores, so there is a corridor of density west of Boston, that, when stacked up, is almost to par with the Quincy and BLX corridors. However, street routings and the rail network; created a situation where there was no clear centralized corridor west of the city like with north and south. The hostile routings of the RR ROWs and the street grid left Allston, Brighton, Watertown, and Waltham; absolutely shafted in the transit expansion department (not to mention Harvard pulling demand away from Kenmore/Back Bay).
 
Delvin4519 said:
It's not about the densities being low. Even in the early 1900s, plans called for an El extension to what is roughly today the Malden bus terminal. This extension would've followed the routing of today's 109 and 106 buses from Sullivan Square via Broadway, Sweetser, and Main. Plus the southside El being extended from Nubian to Forest Hills, despite the city quickly fading into the abyss by the time it gets to Green Street.

West of Boston, you've got major bus terminals at Waltham Center, Watertown Square, and Newton Corner. Brighton Center (and debatably Union Square Allston) is also strong enough to warrent being a dedicated bus terminal. All of these bus terminals could be stringed together onto a single rapid transit line like with northside Orange. Waltham is the metro-west equivalent of Lynn and Quincy on the north and south-shores, so there is a corridor of density west of Boston, that, when stacked up, is almost to par with the Quincy and BLX corridors. However, street routings and the rail network; created a situation where there was no clear centralized corridor west of the city like with north and south. The hostile routings of the RR ROWs and the street grid left Allston, Brighton, Watertown, and Waltham; absolutely shafted in the transit expansion department (not to mention Harvard pulling demand away from Kenmore/Back Bay).
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BERY's 1945 transit expansion plan showed a stub end of an RL extension aimed straight at Waltham (see below). The RL would have terminated in east Watertown with a Mattapan style light rail line from the RL terminus to Arlington Hts. The interseting part is that the RL appears to be set up to extend to Waltham.

1730601632840.png
 
Charlie_mta said:
BERY's 1945 transit expansion plan showed a stub end of an RL extension aimed straight at Waltham (see below). The RL would have terminated in east Watertown with a Mattapan style light rail line from the RL terminus to Arlington Hts. The interseting part is that the RL appears to be set up to extend to Waltham.

View attachment 57499
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It likely wouldn't have been HRT Red Line to Waltham, but an extension of the Arlington Heights trolley west along the Watertown Branch, where the trolley could've handled the grade crossings and closely paralleled the (then-trolley) 71. The reason it wasn't proposed as such in the '45 plan is that it was wartime, and the Watertown Arsenal was doing huge freight volumes that necessitated the branch stay connected to the national network at the Waltham end.
 
Riverside said:
Someone on reddit posted an idea for a loop line connecting Waltham and Riverside. They called it an "unhinged" idea, so I don't feel bad about posting it in this thread:
View attachment 60097
(Higher res and additional details at link.)
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I like it. It's a good application of a cross-suburban transit route that connects radial lines in the outer towns, like a segment of an outer urban ring. The Boston area doesn't have any of those types of routes connecting the radials.
 
Isn't that the 1945 plan just with The Fitchburg ROW instead of the Boston and Albany? In a way, it's an old idea brought back to life arguably better.
 
I think the alternative to compare the "GLoop" to is just a pair of Green Line branches to Riverside and Waltham. (Maybe with both branches extended to a new MassPike/128 super station, but without through-running.) The loop aspect really only helps with Newton <> Waltham journeys, or B&A <> Waltham journeys. That's definitely intriguing, and I think a long-term vision for the area might benefit from those kinds of connections. But I think you'd want to compare the loop alternative to a series of north-south bus/streetcar routes, similar to the 52 or a combination of the 59+556.

I do like the idea of extending a far future Green Waltham branch down to something at the MassPike though, to offer a transfer to the Worcester Line.
 
You had probably seen this proposal before: Reverse branching the Red Line (RL) via Mass Ave.

RL Mass Ave-min.png

But how about this? Reverse branching the Orange Line (OL), via… Lechmere and Kendall!

OL Kendall-min.png



--------------- $h!tposting ends, God Mode begins ---------------


Presenting to you, my latest blog post:

The Kendall-Back Bay Subway: From an Orange Line Re-route to the “Pink Line”

Turns out, such a direct link between Sullivan, Lechmere, Kendall and Copley/Back Bay can be valuable in itself. I present two proposals that use it as a standalone route, the “Pink Line”.

The first one is still borderlining on $h!tposting territory, and one that I wouldn't advocate for -- but it shows a lot of independently interesting ideas:

Pink-Quincy-min.png


The second one is the only halfway-realistic proposal in this entire post:

Pink-City-Point-min.png


Coincidentally (or maybe not), the last Pink Line proposal effectively recreates an idea that I first posted more than a year ago. I know that a lot of you on this board have also included some form of a Kendall-Back Bay subway in your own fantasy maps.

Personally, I favor this Kendall-Back Bay alignment over Mass Ave: it hits the high-demand destinations at more central locations than Mass Ave does. Comparing the two alignments raises a question: How often are our imaginations limited by what exists today?

However, neither alignments can replace a more conventional Urban Ring — which means such a subway proposal will likely remain too aggressive to be prioritized.

Nevertheless, this allows for a closer look at the roles of Back Bay vs. Kendall in the network, or even in the region as a whole. They have much more similarities than you might expect. Why is Back Bay often considered “extended downtown” nowadays, but not Kendall?


Read the full post for a whole lot more details. Feel free to share your thoughts!

--------------------------------------

This is an extension of a question I hinted at in the post but decided not to address there. However, I have some preliminary thoughts that may be worth sharing.

Assume you're in a cost-blind world. How many new rapid transit trunks should you build to the south of downtown? How would you then feed them into each of the downtown trunks? What mode would you have them as: streetcar LRT, "light metro" LRT, or HRT?

(The question has often been examined more often for the northern and western trunks, likely due to more ROWs and GLR. To the south, it seems unclear.)

Writing this post (and other recent thoughts) got me to an entirely new line of thoughts, that's quite different from my earlier opinions AND what I would do in a cost-aware world:
  • "South End Local"
    • Nubian - South End / Washington St, as streetcar using Green Line rolling stock
    • To Tremont St subway (Park St) via Bay Village
  • "Nubian Express"
    • Four Corners - Warren St - Nubian - I93, as HRT line with rapid transit spacing
    • To South Station, and then Congress St subway to North Station via Post Office Sq
    • Continue to Chelsea and (Route 1 and/or Revere)
  • "Red X"
    • Braintree - JFK/UMass - (I93 or BUMC) - South End, as HRT line
    • To Kendall-Back Bay subway
    • Continue to Everett Broadway and Linden Sq
  • "Southie Streetcar"
    • City Point - Broadway, as streetcar using Green Line rolling stock
    • To Tremont St subway (Park St) via Bay Village
    • Can be done in conjunction with a Seaport Transitway extension to Southie -- they don't need to be mutually exclusive
Yes, yes, this is very different from our "standard" thoughts on this board (which are probably: Red X to Congress St, Nubian Local and Nubian Express). In fact, in this scenario, the Kendall-Back Bay subway (the "Pink Line") isn't even among anything I've drawn in my main post!

So why the drastic change?
  • If you want to build Kendall-Back Bay, you need to send it somewhere (unless you're happy with terminating it at Andrew or JFK/UMass)
    • The problem is, it's the least "downtown-centric" N-S trunk among all, and likely least desirable for riders. It feels like a "compromise".
    • Red X is most capable of accepting such a compromise, because of the cross-platform transfer at JFK/UMass. If you need Park/DTX/SS, transfer on the opposite platform.
    • In fact, this might even be a net positive for Red X -- both Ashmont and Quincy riders get easier access to Back Bay and South End without transferring downtown.
  • Under my GLR Capacity Framework, Tremont St can only take 2 services, but we still have 3 to choose from
    • You probably want to prioritize the most "streetcar-like" routes. In other words, if you're forced to make one of the three HRT, better have it be the one that's the most suitable for HRT.
    • So Nubian Express wins, obviously.
    • Congress St is a bit weird for Nubian Express, but South Station and Post Office Sq combined offer decent approximation for DTX. Anyone who really wants Tremont St can take South End Local.
    • (To be fair, I'm indifferent about whether Nubian Express should be grade-separated or street-running south of Nubian. But in this world, you don't have a choice.)
  • The other two, South End Local and Southie Streetcar, are very natural LRT picks that become (reconfigured) Green Line branches
    • This also helps with the "Southie needs OSR to downtown" problem
--------------------------------------

If you're really, really $h!tposting, you can even do this:
  • Restore the original Orange Line,by having Nubian Express feed into Washington St
    • Four Corners - Nubian - Tufts Medical Center - Downtown Crossing - North Station - Oak Grove
  • Reroute the southside Orange Line (SW Corridor) to Congress St:
    • Forest Hills - Ruggles - Back Bay - South Station - Post Office Sq - North Station ( - Chelsea)
 
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Wasn't this basically just the 2003 UR Rail proposal? The route was slightly different but I'd argue the concept really wasn't.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Wasn't this basically just the 2003 UR Rail proposal? The route was slightly different but I'd argue the concept really wasn't.
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I can see the conceptual similarities, but I'd say the motivation was quite different: Whether it's the $h!tpost OL reroute or the more serious Pink Line proposals, I did not truly intend the Kendall-Back Bay subway to replace the Urban Ring outright. The full blog post goes into this in greater detail.

Nevertheless, the same reasons why I don't actually support reverse branching the Orange Line (most notably frequencies) are also why I don't like building that version of Urban Ring Phase 3 (HRT?) as an Orange Line "branch". Though, to be fair to them, IIRC they left it open-ended whether the tunnel would be part of the Orange Line or a new one.
 
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